


Thunderstorms

by spacestationtrustfund



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: F/M, Lynch family feels, M/M, That's a tag now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 08:49:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5533598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacestationtrustfund/pseuds/spacestationtrustfund
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ronan Lynch was ten years old before he realised that the reason it never rained at the Barns was once again because of his father’s dreams.</p><p>-<br/>for <a></a><a href="nimmieamee.tumblr.com">Nimmieamee</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thunderstorms

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nimmieamee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nimmieamee/gifts).



> First off, I have a confession: I am sorry. I meant this to be a short and fluffy story about Ronan and Adam cuddling and talking while it was raining. It then spiralled into a disaster which was not at all short and not really that fluffy. I meant to write fluff. I could not. I apologise. BUT have some angst and Lynch-family feels with minimal cuddling and enjoy!
> 
> Here is the story behind the story: It rained (as it tends to do in the UK) over last weekend, and I thought I would write something relating to thunderstorms. I then remembered a small, inconsequential part of your fic Son of the Nuclear A-Bomb (how do u do links) which talked about the reason it never rained at the Barns. Your interpretation was that Niall Lynch claimed he had fought the thunderstorms and embarrassed them so that they stayed away. This was close enough to my idea that I decided to steal and subsequently repurpose it (along with your OCs; now it all makes sense). I wrote this.
> 
> That said: I hope you (and anyone else reading this) enjoy the story. I loved each and every one of your fics, and I consider you an inspiration as a writer. Keep it up.

 

 

Ronan Lynch was ten years old before he realised that the reason it never rained at the Barns was once again because of his father’s dreams.

He hadn’t thought of it before, but if it ever thunderstormed, the Barns was the eye of that storm. The plants still grew, lush and vibrant and green, even when Ronan got bored halfway through watering them and dumped the remaining water in his watering can on one plant alone. The stream still ran, quick and full and lively, even when, according to Declan, the rest of Henrietta was sweltering through the worst and driest summer in a century.

At ten years old Ronan was less concerned with the possible implications of this weather or lack thereof, and more interested in the intractable fact that, despite the lack of rain, the stream was still deep enough to swim in during the summer.

Declan’s practicality in terms of weather, the same as his practicality in terms of all things, did bother Ronan enough, however, that he asked Niall why it never rained at the Barns when it rained in the rest of Virginia.

Ronan asked when he was helping Niall clean out one of the barns, and was happily smearing mud all over his clothes. It was unusual for Niall to do work himself, and of his own volition, but Ronan didn’t know that, at that point. Niall was delighted with Ronan’s question, but then again, he was delighted with all of Ronan’s questions, back then.

“You see, Ronan,” Niall said, “I don’t like the rain. It gets on everything, and makes me sleepy when I don’t want to sleep. Do _you_ like the rain?”

“No,” Ronan said loyally. If Niall didn’t like something, then Ronan didn’t like it, either.

“Child of mine,” Niall said, delighted. He tousled Ronan’s dark hair. “I don’t like the rain, and the rain doesn’t like me, so one day we decided that the only logical way to settle our differences was to fight.”

“You fought the rain?” Ronan gasped. He was suitably impressed. Declan, a full year younger, had begun to believe Niall’s stories less and less, but Ronan, at ten, revelled in them. “Who won?”

Niall looked disappointed in Ronan’s lack of faith. “I did, of course. And as a punishment the rain promised to stay away from me. They were so embarrassed at their losses that they fled from me. As long as I live the Barns won’t be touched by a drop of rain. Not one.”

“But how do the trees grow?” Ronan had learned at school that plants needed water, and his watering can didn’t seem like it could hold enough to keep all of the forests alive, especially when he didn’t like his chore and often abandoned the watering can in some lonely clearing.

“They grow just the way you do,” Niall explained. He picked Ronan up and held him, although Ronan was too big to be carried, and also covered in mud. “Do you need a thunderstorm to grow, Ronan?”

“No,” Ronan said, smearing twin streaks of mud down Niall’s face. Niall had once told him that thunderstorms were just the sky’s way of tantruming. Ronan considered himself to old for tantrums. He did not want anyone to think he was a baby. “I don’t need anything.”

Niall laughed, and Ronan laughed too, because Niall had. “You don’t need a thunderstorm because you are one, little seal, but you _do_ need a bath.”

Ronan shrieked in protest, but Niall carried him inside anyway.

 

 

The day after Ronan found his father lying on the ground with his face smashed in and blood all over the grass that Ronan hadn’t bothered to water in years, it rained at the Barns for the first time in two decades.

Ronan, lost in a haze of disbelief and pain, didn’t immediately understand the implications of this. He did not understand why his mother would not wake up. He did not understand why nearly every animal slept. He did not understand why Niall had been killed.

Declan had carefully covered Aurora with a blanket and had given both of his younger brothers strict orders not to disturb her. Foillan, the black dog with five-shaded golden eyes, had curled up in a tight knot under the table and would not wake up when Matthew shook him or offered treats. Ronan was having difficulties removing the image of the bloodstains on his father’s BMW from his head, and snapped at Matthew when his younger brother asked for help waking the dog.

It rained all of Friday, when shock slowly began to melt into disbelief began to melt into pain, and the better part of Saturday, when a lawyer in an offical-looking grey suit had shown up on their doorstep and explained the meaning of Niall Lynch’s will to them. Ronan disregarded everything, including the promises of more money than even Gansey had at his beck and call, except for the lines about having to leave.

The Barns was home. He couldn’t leave home.

In Ronan’s opinion, that Saturday was not the worst of the days, but it was certainly a catalyst of destruction. He knew then that his mother would not wake up, that the other animals were mysterious things probably from his father’s head, that Declan was now fully a force against which to fight, instead of the brother Ronan had worshipped in his younger years.

It was a terrible series of realisations.

After several failed attempts at rousing various slumbering animals, Matthew had given up and huddled quietly into a half-circle on the old couch, wrapped in a threadbare blanket but still shivering. Periodically his eyelids drooped, and he shook himself awake hastily, as if he was worried that if he fell asleep he would share the same fate as his mother and the other drowsing creatures of the Barns.

Ronan and Declan sat woodenly at the table. Declan read Niall Lynch’s will over and over as if some part of it would turn out to be fake. Ronan glared out the window as the rain poured down as if it could pound the blood on the grass away, into the dirt so that Ronan would never have to think about it again.

Ronan finally said, “Did Dad ever tell you why it never rained here?”

His voice was dry and hollow, and broke almost immediately. Ronan licked his lips and swallowed, and watched Declan stare monotonously at the papers in his hand.

“No,” Declan said. He sounded angry. “Why the hell would he? You know he liked you better anyway.”

Ronan could not dispute this declaration. He knew better than to lie, even to Declan. “He said he fought the rain and won and so he made it so that it would never thunderstorm here as long as he lived.”

“He would,” Declan muttered.

“Mom told me it was because the rain stayed out to protect us,” Matthew piped up from the couch. He hugged his arms around himself. “So that nothing bad could get in and hurt us.”

“She would,” Declan said bitterly.

There was a moment of silence, then, as all three brothers remembered the fact that whatever their parents had said, they were both unreachable, and neither of the three knew how to get either of them back.

“Well,” Ronan said eventually. He looked out the window at the storm raging all about the house, throwing a furious tantrum, sheeting down rain that pounded on every window. “Whatever the reason, it’s here now.”

 

 

“God,” Ronan said, shooting a poisonous look at Gansey before falling backwards onto the couch, “but I hate the rain.”

Gansey did not immediately look up. He was lying prone on the floor with his notebook spread-eagled in front of him, propping up his chin in one hand while he scribbled into the notebook. He appeared to have decided that the rain’s appearance was a laudable reason to become more irritatingly studious than ever.

Noah, sitting on the floor next to Gansey with his knees drawn up to his chest and his arms wrapped around his knees, said, “Yeah, me too.”

“The rain’s been messing with the ley line,” Gansey said, almost dreamily. “It did this last time, too. I think it washes the line out of proportion or alignment or something like that, and that’s why Noah’s not feeling well. Adam agreed with me.”

“Parrish? Since when is Parrish a deciding factor in shit?” Ronan said. He pulled one of the old, musty pillows over his face so that Gansey couldn’t look at him. “It needs to stop fucking raining.”

“I can’t understand what you’re saying when you’re talking into a pillow,” Gansey said mildly, with typical Ganseyness, “but I can’t make it stop raining, if that’s what you want me to do.”

Ronan kept the pillow over his face. “What’s the point of having a magical place if it won’t _stay_ magical without help? I didn’t ask for a dependent. I don’t want to have to deal with this.”

“Speaking of Adam,” Gansey continued, resolutely ignoring Ronan’s last few statements, “he should be coming over later, once he’s finished with work.”

Gansey’s tone made it clear that, while he valued Adam’s persistence where menial work was concerned, he did not approve of its coming between Adam and the search for Glendower.

Ronan made a sound which he approximated halfway between a sigh and a groan.

“I can’t tell if you’re actually saying something,” Gansey said, “or if you’re not, because of that pillow on top of your face.”

Ronan took the pillow off his face.

“I’m going for a drive,” he said, and threw the pillow at Noah, who yelped and dove out of the way. “Give Parrish my best when he shows up from whichever job he’s been doing this time.”

“Will do,” Gansey said, resigned, and turned a page.

Noah slunk back towards the couch, the pillow in one hand, and raised his eyebrows at Ronan. Noah’s eyebrows asked a silent question: _what are you going to do?_

Ronan ignored him.

 

 

Niall Lynch left the Barns more and more frequently as Ronan grew older, which made the fleeting times when he was home more and more precious to Ronan. He could not imagine where Niall would be going; the Barns, Ronan believed, was the only place in the world worth going.

One day Niall came home with his hair messy and flowers in his pockets that grew tendrils that would attach to whatever you set them on, and announced that he was going to take Ronan with him for a drive. Ronan was disbelievingly thrilled by this concept.

Aurora was making breakfast (pancakes and scrambled eggs, even though Declan didn’t like pancakes, and complained loudly) and she frowned at this news. “Where would you take him?”

“Out,” Niall said, scooping up Ronan in his arms and throwing him over his shoulder. Ronan was eleven, far too big to be thrown over anyone’s shoulder, even Niall’s, but he laughed wildly and clung to Niall’s neck. “Come on, little seal. I’ll let you ride in the front seat.”

This was a novelty and a privilege. Normally only Declan was allowed to ride in the front seat. Niall set Ronan down on the floor and Ronan eagerly ran to get his shoes.

Matthew was sitting at the table dutifully eating pancakes. “Can I come, too?”

Declan looked up sharply. “What about me?”

“No,” Niall said, ruffling Ronan’s hair as Ronan came running back into the room with his shoes. “The world can only handle one of my children at a time. Two Lynches running wild in the world is just enough, but more than that would break something crucial to time and space, and where would we be then?”

“What about Mom?” asked Matthew.

“Your mother,” Niall said, putting his arm about Aurora’s waist, “is too nice for the world to have to deal with. There is not enough good in this world for her to waste it on an outing such as this one.”

This made sense to Ronan. He was impatient to leave. “Come on, come on,” he begged, tugging at Niall’s shirt. Niall laughed and grabbed the keys to the BMW, kissed Aurora, patted Matthew’s unruly curls, and followed Ronan.

Niall did indeed let Ronan sit in the front seat, and Ronan amused himself by opening and closing the glove box and playing with the straw wrappers, CDs, paper napkins, and unidentifiable metal objects he found there. Sitting in the front seat was very different from sitting in the back. Ronan decided that Declan had been unfairly keeping it to himself, and that from then on Declan would have to share. He told Niall this, and Niall laughed.

They stopped at a wholly unsatisfying diner, and Niall ushered Ronan through the dull-glass door without finesse. It had started to drizzle, and Ronan watched the rain dubiously, wondering why it dared to exist in a place where his father was.

A waitress in a threadbare yellow apron asked them how they were doing, her eyes lingering on Niall, but Ronan ignored her. He had just discovered that there were barstools, something that the Barns, for all of its splendour, lacked, and made up for lacking this by spinning around and around until he was trembling with vertigo.

“Ronan,” Niall said. It sounded like he meant to say something else that Ronan didn’t want to hear.

Ronan stopped spinning.

“I thought you said the rain stayed away from you,” he said mulishly, glaring at the fuzz of condensation gathering on the windows, the streaks of water spilling down from the eaves. “Why’s it here?”

Niall ordered them food before he answered, but Ronan found the greasy fries uninteresting and the iced tea too cold. “Why’s it raining?” he complained again. “You _said_ it wouldn’t rain.”

“Not if I don’t want it to,” Niall explained, as if Ronan had been silly not to realise that, and Ronan realised he had been. “Do you want me to make it stop?”

 _“Yes,”_ Ronan said, annoyed. He didn’t doubt Niall’s ability to stop the rain; he didn’t really care one way or the other; he wanted to go home. The world outside the Barns was turning out to be far less intriguing than he had anticipated.

“Fine,” Niall said. He gave Ronan the money to pay for their meal, and Ronan handed it sulkily to the yellow-aproned waitress, still wanting to spin on the barstools, but more interested in returning home. The rest of the world was boring, as far as he was concerned.

Ronan didn’t notice if the rain had stopped while they were still inside the diner, but by the time they walked to the charcoal-grey BMW, Ronan kicking the pebbles that littered the parking lot, the storm had passed, and the sun had returned.

He told Declan about the waitress’ yellow apron, and the barstools, and how riding in the front seat was everything Declan had ever talked about and more, and Declan listened patiently. He was still someone Ronan adored and worshipped almost as much as he worshipped Niall, back then.

“That sounds lame,” Declan proclaimed, finally. They were sitting on Declan’s bed; this was before Ronan had been exiled from Declan’s room. “What’s the point, then?”

Ronan nodded. Once Declan, the elder, had given judgement, that was how it was unless Niall or Aurora had something else to say. It was written in the very code of brothers that they lied to outsiders but never to each other.

Matthew wandered in then, still eating leftover pancakes from breakfast. Declan wrinkled his nose at Matthew’s food choices. “It’s stopped raining,” Matthew noted, sitting down next to his brothers; Declan waved his hand pointlessly as bits of chewed pancake landed on his legs.

“Dad made it stop,” Ronan said. He had forgotten this, until then.

“He can’t do that,” Declan asserted, but it was dubious. Magic was not the issue; practicality was. Declan was less forgiving of magic than the others were, less willing to believe. Matthew trusted everything. And Ronan was somewhere in between.

“Dad can do anything,” Ronan protested, still loyal.

Declan wiped his legs and frowned at Matthew, still happily chewing. “Not anything.”

Ronan was eleven; he believed in his father. “You didn’t see it.”

Declan scowled. “Neither did you.”

 

 

When Ronan returned Adam had already left Monmouth, presumably to go to another job or to meet Blue or to try to sleep. Ronan told himself this was a good thing, that he had avoided seeing Adam, but something inside his chest wanted to disagree. Ronan dealt with this irritating part of him by stomping up the stairs and slamming the door, which helped somewhat.

Gansey had moved on from attempting to sort out the organised disaster that was his Glendower journal and was lying on the couch tossing a small scrap of paper back and forth with Noah. Ronan took in all this in a glance and went right to his room.

“Ronan, are you planning on joining us for dinner?” Gansey called after him.

Ronan conveyed his opinions on dinner socialisations with a gesture that saved him time and also relied rather heavily on his middle finger. He heard Gansey’s sigh, but it didn’t mean much.

Chainsaw, having been left out of her cage, had grown bored with Ronan’s absence and had decided to tangle the cord of his headphones into an untangleable knot. She startled when he slammed the door, and walked noisily across the dresser to look scoldingly down at him. Ronan ignored her.

It needed to stop raining, that was all, no matter what Ronan thought, and no matter what Adam thought, either. Even if Adam loved the rain more than anything, Ronan wanted it to stop. He couldn’t get rid of the image of his father’s blood and brains and flesh spread over the ground, and the steady pattering of rain on the roof of the Barns.

It needed to _stop fucking raining._

 

 

The rain effected the Lynch family in different ways for each of them; during the long weekends they spent in New York for enigmatic purposes that mainly had to do with unspecified artifices of Niall Lynch’s work, it occasionally rained, although rarely when Niall was around.

Aurora became even gentler and kinder when it thunderstormed; she would sit and read aloud in a melodious voice to Matthew, and sometimes Ronan, while Declan persisted that he was too old to be read to any more. Sometimes she would sew, or clean, or play with Matthew while Ronan watched television and Declan read books with authors whose names were Russian or Chinese or German and had too many syllables and odd combinations of consonants. Aurora only became more impossibly loving when it rained.

Matthew was much the same, interested only in playing or following Ronan or hurrying after Aurora like a small, boy-shaped cloud. When he was three Matthew had been mildly annoying. When he was five Matthew had been vaguely interesting. When he was seven Matthew was something to be protected.

And as for Declan, he had changed from someone Ronan would follow anywhere into someone who wouldn’t let Ronan go anywhere. Ronan didn’t know if it was something that happened to all brothers when they grew up, if he would become as detached and disbelieving when he was twelve and thirteen and fourteen and fifteen and sixteen, but he didn’t want to be that way. When it rained Declan would sit in one of the chairs that Ronan had christened the “New York chairs” and read or write notes in his small, cramped writing. They said things like _symbolism—discuss_ or _reason for flower/leaf_ or _research historical basis._ It would not be until later that Ronan would compare Declan’s notes with Gansey’s, different only because of the root of their magics.

Ronan himself still didn’t like the rain, but it would be years before he learned how much he truly despised it. During the family trips to New York—the long, crowded car rides filled with Niall’s music and the boys’ complaining; the meals grabbed from shabby, unreal diners where Ronan’s feet didn’t touch the floor, the food that always tasted like too much sat; the thin mattresses that squeaked when Matthew jumped on them, the flimsy walls that Ronan was half-temped to kick down, the tilted tables that Declan always complained about because he couldn’t do his homework—the rain was merely a variable, necessary for everything.

There was no way Ronan could picture his father—charismatic, living, vibrant, unreal—as dead. If Niall Lynch died, it would not be something quiet and unnoticed; it would be an explosion. Ronan would know, so that he could get revenge.

But even when it rained in New York, Ronan did not imagine his father’s death. It was implausible, intangible, pointless to think of, because how could you kill a god? How could you destroy a saint? How would you defeat an impossibility?

 

 

It was still raining when the three of them made it to the Aglionby campus that Friday, and while most of the boys carried overlarge umbrellas from class to class, Ronan instead hunched his shoulders and ducked his head and let the rain pummel him. He figured after so long escaping the rain, he deserved this much.

Gansey had also brought an umbrella, which he shared with Adam and would have shared with Ronan, had Ronan wanted to share, but the prospect of having to huddle together tripping over each other’s feet and knocking elbows into ribs was not an agreeable one.

They were early for their next class, but lunch was over, so the three of them stood under the grey awning of Welch Hall and watched the water drip down from the eaves.

“After the storm passes by, we should go out to try to realign the ley line,” Gansey said in a low voice, to keep their conversation secret from the other occupants of the admittedly-minimal dry space underneath the awning. “The rain likely shifted it again.”

“Yeah,” Adam agreed distantly. He looked thin and pale in the eerie half-light, almost as if he were Noah, not quite there. He would have been easy to overlook in a crowd, if you didn’t know him.

Ronan wasn’t able to overlook him, but he didn’t know how much of a good thing that was.

Henry Cheng, accompanied by a small posse of boys and holding an umbrella to protect his impressively-styled hair, headed across the grass towards them. Adam turned away from the newcomers, invisibly tugging Gansey along with him, and they disappeared back into their conversation.

It struck Ronan that he was being left out of an awful lot of conversations, lately.

As Henry Cheng’s crowd approached, Ronan could hear their conversation take over: _This place needs a better walkway; the grass is all over my shoes. I hate the rain, dude. At least you’re not in London. They’d have better sidewalks, though. They’re called pavements, you idiot. What would_ you _know? Europe’s not that interesting anyway. I mean, I’ve been there every summer. What a drag._

Ronan thought he would have preferred to be left out of that conversation, instead.

“Oh, hey,” Henry Cheng said, noticing them. “It’s Dick Gansey and Lynch.”

“And Parrish,” somebody, probably Tad Carruthers, said.

Adam looked up at the sound of his name, but his eyes found Ronan instead. He checked his battered watch. “Hey, Ronan. It’s five till, we’re gonna go in.” Uncertainty lent a touch of Henrietta to his accent.

“Great,” Ronan said. Adam and Gansey both had Political Science, a class Ronan would not have wanted to take even if he’d had the grades to do so. Ronan had Biology. “Give my best to the teacher.”

Adam looked as though he very much doubted that Ronan was being honest. Ronan didn’t mind. It was not technically a lie; he rarely disliked on principle, and teachers were only to be despised if he knew them.

“Lynch,” Henry Cheng announced jovially, once Adam and Gansey had gone. “I suppose it would be beyond your powers to convince the old man to help me with my latest project?”

For a moment Ronan thought they were talking about his father. Then he was angry. He did not know what Henry meant; he did not care what it meant. Enigmas were not generally Ronan’s speciality, unless they were Ronan himself. “Ask him yourself, asshole.”

“I have tried,” Henry admitted, spreading his arms wide. “Yet alas, he seems to only be morally invested in the menial class. I don’t suppose you could lift him up from the gutter?”

“You suppose too much,” Ronan snarled. He didn’t want to talk about Adam, even indirectly. The worst of it was probably that it was likely that Henry had no idea. No idea of how deep his words cut. Ronan could picture the hurt in Adam’s eyes.

“Hey,” Logan van Buren interrupted, bumping Henry’s shoulder with his own. “Cheng. Leave the man alone. We should get to class, actually. You know Anders is a bitch about being late. Us being late, I mean. He’s an asshole.”

“Who isn’t,” Henry agreed, and stepped away from Ronan to lead his pack inside Welch Hall.

Ronan hesitated, looking out at the sheets of rain that torrented down from the unhappily grey sky. He could not separate the rain from his father’s murder. He could not remove the piece of him that seeped anger. He could not make himself perfect. He could not make himself into someone who was deserving of Adam Parrish.

He went inside.

 

 

During the weekend Ronan spent as much time as he could manage inside his room, sleeping or trying to sleep, or trying to convince himself that getting drunk would be a bad idea, or trying to stay away from Adam and Gansey and Blue and Noah, but mostly Adam. It was almost a relief when school started again on Monday.

Ronan ignored everyone until lunch, keeping in his mindset of hating everything until it stopped raining, but really, it was just selfishness that kept him at it. No one wanted to be around him anyway.

Henry Cheng and his crowd had gathered around the entrance to the indoor cafeteria, an act which would have been a problem at an ordinary school. Aglionby, for its part, favoured packs. The upper class was all about social and political connections and networks, and it was best to start young.

Ronan, who despised all things social and/or political, did not use this favouritism to his advantage as often as Henry Cheng’s Vancouver boys did.

“Lynch,” Henry greeted Ronan, with sincere politeness. The rain either snapped or strengthened tolerances, depending on the person. Gansey had called it telling. Ronan had called it bullshit. “Dick still talking to the headmaster? Shame. Say, what’s up with Parrish?”

Ronan looked back over his shoulder.

Adam was sitting at a table, staring at his hands. His lunch, meagre as it was, sat untouched in front of him—Aglionby had chefs, of course, but it was a mark of pride for the boys who brought in their own lunches, just another way to show off. Normally Adam didn’t eat—or didn’t not-eat—alone, but Gansey was preoccupied and Ronan had been waylaid.

Ronan knew that Adam had been communicating with Cabeswater, trying to anticipate the possible damage to the ley line as a result of the storm. He knew that Adam had stayed awake late studying and attempting to straighten out the blurry mess that was his own personal magic. Ronan knew these things the same way that he knew the dark circles under Adam’s eyes, the skinny, angular jaunt of his hands, the hollow look of determination in his blue eyes.

Cabeswater was, to put it simply, malfunctioning. Blue was terrifying. Noah was melting. Gansey was maddening. The rain was infuriating. There were many possible answers to Logan van Buren’s question, but none of them would suit Henry Cheng and his flock of raven boys.

So Ronan merely shrugged and said, “Dunno.”

“He’s not eating,” Tad Carruthers piped up. “Is he, is he like, anorexic or something?” He stumbled over the words, uncertain.

“Don’t be stupid,” one of the others said. “ _Anorexic?_ ”

“Isn’t that just for chicks?”

“What would _you_ know?”

“When it comes to chicks, a hell of a lot more than you.”

“Asshole.”

And then suddenly the topic of conversation had switched from Adam Parrish’s eating habits of lack thereof to various girls who were supposed to be attractive, and Ronan didn’t bother to say anything else to contribute. He was no longer required. He had nothing to add.

Gansey was still missing, so Ronan drifted as casually as he could over towards Adam and sat down across the table from him. “Parrish.”

“Lynch,” Adam replied, without looking up. The corner of his mouth twitched briefly towards a smile, before any hopes of one fled from the vicinity. Ronan felt an unwarranted surge of hope. It was not a smile, but it was the idea of one.

“Still raining,” Ronan said. He wanted Adam to say something about the rain, about the inevitability of of either Adam’s staying at Monmouth or Ronan’s staying at St Agnes. He wanted Adam to ask him if he liked the rain; he wanted to tell Adam why not. He wanted it to stop raining so that Adam would be _Adam_ again.

“Still raining,” Adam agreed, uncertainty stealing the last _g_ from the last word. His eyes flickered up to meet Ronan’s, then darted back down towards his hands.

“Do you think it’s fucking with the line?” Ronan asked, so that Adam would know that he had been listening before. “The rain, that is.”

Adam shrugged one shoulder, distracted by something only a magician would be distracted by. “Sure.”

“After the storm leaves, will you try to fix it?”

“Of course,” Adam said, then he looked up again, only this time he didn’t look away. He held Ronan’s gaze, almost as though he were issuing a challenge: _I am your equal,_ Adam’s eyes said. _I dare you to say otherwise._

Ronan could not lie. Adam Parrish had far surpassed him in many things and showed no signs of stopping. Sometimes it was something like a problem, but more often Ronan felt like telling the truth was the only thing he had left of any purpose. “Do you need any help with that?”

“No,” Adam said. Ronan’s breath caught. “But I wouldn’t mind some, if you’re offering.”

“It’s just, what? Moving rocks? Not too fucking difficult. I grew up on a fucking farm, Parrish. I’m accustomed to hard labour. I’m not from here.”

“As if I could forget,” Adam mumbled. Then, louder: “All right. You can help. But you’ll have to do what I tell you to.”

Ronan said, “When do I ever not?”

“Do you really want me to answer that question?”

Ronan leaned back and regarded Adam. It seemed so impossible. _Adam_ seemed so impossible. Ronan was terrified of the possibility of waking up one day and discovering that it had all been one of his dreams, the entirety of the magic, Gansey’s wild quest for a king and every improbably moment and Cabeswater’s power and then, even, Adam.

He said, “Anything to pass the time until it stops fucking raining.”

 

 

It rained frequently at the Barns after Niall Lynch’s death; the thunderstorms had two decades’ worth of storming to catch up on, and they took to the task immediately and continued at it for days.

That first, terrible night, the raindrops pounded like artillery on the roof, a merciless reproach, a sickening song. Ronan huddled under the covers and squeezed his eyes shut, covering his ears first with his hands and then with his headphones, drowning out the noise.

The next morning Ronan and Declan sported matching purple smudges under their eyes, and even hapless Matthew yawned and blinked sleepily at the breakfast table. The next night was the same, and then on Saturday it was explained to them that they would have to desert the Barns, so on Sunday everything was worse.

Ronan had barely slept Saturday night, and Sunday morning was a haze of rain and anger and the overwhelming and terrifying desire to smash his fist into something strong until he turned it into something yielding.

They ate cold sausages and ravioli left over from the last day of normality, and Ronan stabbed at his breakfast with his fork and glared mutinously and announced that he was leaving.

“What do you mean?” Declan said, his own fork immobile in his tight hand.

“I have to fucking leave anyway. Dad’s will said so,” Ronan reminded him, although he knew Declan had not forgotten. “I’m moving in with Gansey. He has a place, and it’s got room, and it’s better than sharing a dorm with some asshole from school.”

Declan was very still. He said, very slowly and deliberately, “Actually. I thought I would talk to the headmaster. So that you and Matthew would room with me.”

This was momentarily confusing. Declan was the only one of them who lived at Aglionby; Ronan had refused to leave the Barns, and Matthew had refused to leave Ronan. Declan had refused to stay with either the Barns or Ronan. It would have been a nice thought, his offering now, but Ronan knew it was probably just because Declan wanted to keep an eye on them.

“Well, you don’t have to,” Ronan said. “I already have somewhere to go.”

“Ronan . . .”

“Fuck off,” Ronan said. The rain drummed mockingly on the roof. “I don’t fucking care what you want. I’m moving my shit over to Gansey’s as soon as I can, asshole.”

Declan cast a quick, protective glance towards Matthew, as if to shield him, although they both knew he had heard far worse from both of them before. “Ronan—”

“ _Fuck off._ ”

“We’ve only got each other now,” Declan said. His voice was dangerous, and somehow this got through to Ronan: from one monster to another, what was the point of lying? “I _have_ to protect you—like it or not. And Matthew. What do you want to happen to him? We—the three of us, we’re all that’s left.”

The truth of it dug in like a knife wound. A day before Ronan had had both his mother and his father. Now he had neither. He didn’t even have his home. He would have to make a new one.

Ronan said, “I’m staying with Gansey.”

He had not talked to Gansey about this. He did not care.

“ _Ronan,_ ” Declan said. He was almost pleading, something Ronan had not seen Declan do in years. “Ronan, _please._ Dad’s dead and Mom won’t wake up and now you’re—you’re—”

Matthew sat, staring at Ronan with wide eyes while Declan stammered. He was the one hesitation Ronan had, the one thing that threatened his resolve. Ronan knew he had to keep him safe. He could not end up like his father. He could not control himself; he did not know how. Niall’s lessons had lacked how to turn off the dreams.

Declan’s expression had melted from betrayal to anger. “Fine. But you have to stay in school. I’m serious, Ronan,” Declan added, when Ronan scoffed. “Pass all your exams. Make decent grades. If I find out you’re not, then it’s off and you come live with me and Matthew. No negotiations.”

“Fine,” Ronan spat out. His heartbeat mirrored the rain. Once he would have apologised, told Declan he hadn’t meant it, reassured his brother that, as Lynches, they would have to look out for each other. It had been written in the code of the Lynch brothers that they stuck together. Once, however, was nothing compared to now. Now, Ronan was done with being unable to choose the brothers he wanted. Gansey was his choice, and that much was final.

“Fine,” Declan repeated. “Get the hell out.”

“ _Fine,_ ” Ronan said. He stood up. He did not look at Matthew; he would not have been able to bear it, his resolve would have crumbled. He lifted his chin. “But I’m taking the BMW.”

 

 

The rain had not lessened once school had finished, only grown heavier and thicker, more determined. Ronan turned on the wipers on the BMW and drove through the storm to St Agnes, stopping only once, at Nino’s to pick up food.

It was foolishness, really, over-analysing every little word and gesture and unplanned brush of skin on skin, but Ronan couldn’t or didn’t want to stop the part or him that thought maybe, maybe if Adam moved on from Blue, maybe if Ronan didn’t fuck this up too, maybe if—

Adam opened the door. “Ronan?”

“Parrish,” Ronan said. Rain was dripping down his shirt from the brief run up the stairs, and the cold made him shiver. Adam had already changed into a pair of worn sweat pants and a threadbare grey shirt, and his hair was rumpled and pressed to one side like he’d slept on it. “Are you gonna let me in?”

“Yeah,” Adam said, holding open the door. “But if you drip on the floor it’ll take forever for the mould to go away, so don’t.”

“Noted,” Ronan said, stepping through the door. He kicked off his shoes and settled back against the wall. Adam sat down facing him. “Hey, I brought you dinner.”

“Thanks,” Adam said quietly, accepting the bag. “You didn’t have to.”

“I know,” Ronan said.

Adam titled his head and looked at him, really _looked._ It made Ronan uncomfortable, but also filled him with an urgent feeling of satisfaction, like maybe Adam could see through the invisible force field. “Ronan . . .”

Ronan waited.

“If the rain stops tomorrow,” Adam said, finally, “we can do the ley line thing then.”

“Sure,” Ronan agreed, disappointed. “If it ever stops fucking raining. I’m serious,” he added, when Adam smirked and peered into the paper bag. “The rain doesn’t like me.”

“Doesn’t _like_ you?”

“Long-standing rivalry,” Ronan said, ducking his head. After all the leading-up-to-it part, he didn’t think he wanted to talk about it after all. “It’s just, it—rained. The day I found my father.”

Adam was silent, his hands twisted together in his lap around the paper bag.

“It never rained at the Barns,” Ronan continued, reckless. He couldn’t say what Niall had told him, but he could explain some of it. “Not until—not until he died. Was killed, I mean. Fuck this. Forget it.”

He could see Adam putting the pieces together in his mind, combining the Ronan he knew with this new one, and it infuriated him. Ronan wanted to be known, but not in any old way. He wanted to be known by Adam, he wanted Adam to be known by him, he wanted Gansey to know and to understand, he wanted Blue to accept it, he wanted—

“No, don’t forget it,” Adam said. “Hey. Ronan. Ronan, look at me. Hey. I get it.”

“No you fucking _don’t,_ ” Ronan snapped. “Your father was a piece of shit, okay? You can’t know what it’s like, you never _had_ a fucking family to begin with. Don’t say you get it because that’s what you’re supposed to say, Parrish. Say what you fucking _mean._ ”

Adam watched him, and Ronan hated how quickly things had turned bitter. He didn’t want to be so angry all the time, but somehow he hadn’t figured out how to turn off the part of him that screamed and raged and threw things whenever anybody else tried to help.

“I mean that I know what it’s like,” Adam said, “to not have a family. You think they’re not dead to me? You think that a day goes by when I don’t think about what I did, what it would be like if I didn’t? What would have happened if you weren’t there? Ronan, I . . .” He paused, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand. “I know, okay? I know.”

“Yeah,” Ronan said.

Adam shifted so that he was sitting next to Ronan, and pressed his shoulder into Ronan’s side. “If you don’t wanna talk about it, then we don’t have to talk about it. But if you want to, then I’m here.”

“I know,” Ronan said. It was a whisper. “I know. Adam. I know.”

“I know you know,” Adam mumbled, and sighed. Ronan didn’t move, worried that he would mess something up.

“I know you know I know, asshole.”

Adam laughed, but kept his head on Ronan’s shoulder. “I know you know I know you know I—oh damn, I forgot how many times to say ‘know,’ never mind.” He shifted back away from Ronan, then leaned back in and kissed him.

Ronan froze.

It was one thing to think about this when he was alone, in his room or with Chainsaw or to confide to Noah; it was another thing entirely to have it happening for real.

There were a lot of things he hadn’t thought about, such as how truly awkward it was. Their teeth knocked together, and Ronan’s nose was smashed against Adam’s, and he didn’t know what to do with his hands. Adam sat back almost immediately, looking half terrified and half nervous, and Ronan had never wanted a do-over so fucking much.

“Um, so,” Adam said, shifting and not meeting Ronan’s eyes, “um, sorry, if you didn’t want, I mean, I should have asked before I, I mean it’s—”

His accent was all over the place, his hair was still messy and falling in his face, his ears were bright red, and Ronan had never been so attracted to anybody in his life.

“What the fuck, Parrish,” he said. Adam’s eyes looked panicked, full of the terror of rejection. “It’s supposed to be me who’s doing stuff like that, I mean aren’t _I_ the prime candidate to make the first move? Come _on._ ”

“You know me,” Adam said, slightly breathless. “I love to defy stereotypes.”

“Okay, then let’s try that again, maybe,” Ronan said. “If you don’t mind.”

“I’m all for repeating it until we perfect it,” Adam said, and leaned in again. It was a little better this time, but Ronan was still having trouble figuring out what to do with his hands (cup Adam’s cheeks? Trace his spine? Hold his shoulders? Why was there no instruction manual for this) and Adam seemed to be too nervous.

“Jesus, Parrish, relax,” Ronan said. “It’s not a race.”

“Shut up,” Adam said, his ears still bright red. “Shut up. You’re not helping.”

“I’m always helping. I’m here, aren’t I?”

Adam tried valiantly not to laugh. “Shut _up._ You’re such an asshole.”

“Ah, but you like me,” Ronan said, grinning. He put his hand on the back of Adam’s neck and pulled him in for another kiss. “See, you’re just as much of an asshole, because no one in their right mind would like me.”

“Guess I don’t have to be jealous, then,” Adam whispered. “That’s good.”

“Tell that to Blue.”

Adam laughed again. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

 

 

It rained the first day Declan was sent off to Aglionby; huddled under an impossibly blue umbrella, Ronan scowled at Matthew while Aurora hugged Declan and Niall, who had unwillingly driven them there, held the other umbrella.

Ronan was thirteen, and had reached an age where he had decided that the best way to get through life was to care as little as possible. He had altered his wardrobe to black, perfected his scowl, and was a veritable dictionary of swear words. Niall told Ronan that he was seventy per cent proud and forty per cent disappointed. Ronan didn’t comment on the mathematical error. He had moved past such things.

And at thirteen Ronan believed in his father’s dreams more than ever—Ronan himself was relearning what it was to dream, and changing his mind about the previously-believed notion of dreams being nothing but dreams—but believed his father’s stories less and less.

It was just like what had happened to Declan.

Ronan did not want to be a copy of Declan. He had wanted to be a copy of Niall Lynch, once, but now he wanted to be something else entirely.

“What is it you want to be, then, little seal?” asked Niall. Ronan permitted the nickname only when no one else was around to hear, but he was still growing out of simpler things.

“Fuck if I know,” Ronan had said. That was his usual response when it was a question he didn’t want to answer.

Now he had only a year before he joined Declan at Aglionby. It felt somehow like being gotten rid of, and Ronan didn’t like that notion in the least. Declan, Ronan was certain, was the sort of person who could turn it around so that he was the one getting rid of the rest of them, but Ronan had not yet perfected this skill.

There were an awful lot of skills that Ronan would only perfect after Niall’s death.

“Don’t forget, you’re visiting us every weekend,” Aurora told Declan, bestowing a kiss upon his cheek. He permitted this wearily, looking slightly annoyed; Ronan thought he was probably thinking of all the effort he had gone to that morning to style his hair, and now it was getting ruined by the rain.

“I already said I’d visit,” Declan said. From Aglionby to the Barns was only an hour’s drive if you drove like Aurora, and a thirty-minute drive if you drove like Niall, so for Declan it would likely be somewhere in the middle. “Is that all?”

“Have fun,” Ronan said, perfunctory. He was less interested in Declan’s send-off than he was in getting out of the rain.

Declan made a face, which somehow turned him back to the brother Ronan hadn’t hated. It was only for a second. “I will. Jesus. Can I go now? It’s still raining, and I want to get my stuff inside.”

Niall embraced his son, and whispered something to Declan that only Declan could hear. He slapped Declan on the back, and Declan winced. Aurora hugged him again, and even Matthew ventured out from the relative safety of the umbrella to give his older brother a good-by hug. Matthew had a tendency to hug all living objects.

“See you,” Ronan mumbled, feeling suddenly coarse. He fist-bumped Declan, who rolled his eyes. Then Declan dragged his bags across the wet grass towards his dorm, which he would share with another student (according to the papers Ronan and Matthew, although admittedly mostly Ronan, had read, Declan’s room mate was to be someone called CHENG, HENRY A.) for the first year before being reassigned the next. Four years. Ronan couldn’t imagine it.

“All right,” Niall said, bringing the umbrella and Aurora back over to Ronan and Matthew. “That’s done. It’s a long drive back, do you think we should get something to eat first? Excellent idea, I’m glad you agree.” He grinned in a way that made clear he was joking, and headed towards the silver-grey BMW.

 

 

“Hey,” Adam said. His accent was back, but somehow it made his voice something _more_ , instead of something less. “Hey, c’mere.”

Ronan hesitated, a thousand pointless excuses flashing through his head, then grabbed the pillow and crawled forwards onto the mattress. Adam shifted away so that there would be room for them both to lie there, facing each other.

“Adam—”

“Shut up,” Adam said. He reached out and tugged Ronan’s arm towards him, so that Ronan was forced to move even closer until they were almost touching. Adam pulled Ronan’s arm over his shoulder and curled himself into Ronan’s chest.

Ronan carefully, hesitantly settled his hand between Adam’s shoulders. He wondered if Adam could hear how fast his heart was beating.

_What are we doing—_

This was everything: Ronan’s arm curled against Adam’s back, Adam’s hands tucked against his chest, their bodies pressed together from shoulders to hips to legs. It was everything that mattered.

“ _Dormire non volo,_ ” he whispered into Adam’s hair. He wondered if Adam would tell him it was okay to sleep. He thought he would be disappointed if that was what Adam said. That was not who they were, not people who comforted each other and told each other it would be okay. They were people who knew it would not be okay, and survived anyway.

Ronan was terrified of his dreams, of waking up with monsters desecrating Adam’s shabby apartment, of night horrors tearing Adam himself to shreds the way they did in his dreams.

Adam didn’t say it was okay to sleep. Adam said, “Do you want me to . . . keep you awake, or something like that?”

Ronan didn’t answer for a while, thinking. Then he said, “No. No, I don’t think so. It would be better for you to sleep,” he told Adam, knowing that Adam was the one who needed to be functioning enough for school and work and Gansey. “And maybe we could take it in shifts or something, so neither of us gets fucked over by our dreams.”

This was how they were both the most and the least similar: Ronan’s dreams wanted themselves to kill him, and Adam’s dreams wanted him to keep them alive. It was a neat little paradox, a study in dark and light and all things in between.

“Okay,” Adam said. He shifted again so that he was even closer, and his hands caught in Ronan’s shirt. Ronan closed his eyes and bit down on his tongue to stop himself from saying something stupid.

The rain pattered on the roof of the apartment, lulling and cruelly present. Ronan could imagine he was in his own bed at the Barns, the knowledge of his father’s murder swirling all around him while he tried desperately and futilely to sleep.

But there was Adam now, and that was different; Ronan banished the thoughts of home and kept his eyes shut. None of what had happened mattered now. That was what he kept trying to relearn, and kept forgetting.

 

 

It rained at Niall Lynch’s funeral; the thunderstorms were, in Ronan’s opinion, determined to make up for their lost years.

But this? This seemed harsh, even for Ronan.

It rained while Ronan endured people he’d never met or didn’t remember meeting shaking his hand and patting his shoulders and embracing him, telling him the same stupid saying over and over: _I’m sorry for your loss I’m sorry for your loss I’m sorry for your—_

It rained while Declan stood under a night-black umbrella and officiated the entire process, fielding the endless questions sent their way by inquisitive old ladies looking for tea-time gossip; rich, professional men with rich, professional fathers and firm handshakes and too many shares; middle-aged curiosities who regarded the Lynch brothers as an editorial waiting to happen; younger girls in too-thin dresses who shivered in the rain and watched Declan, and occasionally Ronan and Matthew, with avid interest, making Ronan want to scream at them _You don’t know you don’t know you don’t know._ No one knew, not even Declan.

It rained while the preacher made an eloquent speech about how Niall Lynch had been a loving, welcoming, kind man who had been brutally murdered in a cruel robbery (Declan’s official cover story) and who was survived by a wife too ill to work and three intelligent, handsome sons who would go great places and do great things. It was a speech so full of flowery, fictitious adjectives that Ronan felt like laughing, and did until Gansey elbowed him painfully in the ribs.

 _“In poor taste,”_ Gansey, ever the diplomat, hissed through gritted teeth and a plastered-on smile that looked too charismatic to be real and that Ronan had discovered was Gansey’s fake smile, created for politics and wealth and handsome dinner parties of great socio-political importance.

“When am I ever fucking not,” Ronan hissed back. He shook his head and sprayed drops of rain on to Gansey’s black silk suit and neat wool pants. The suit alone probably cost as much as a year at Aglionby, but Gansey only sighed and folded a mint leaf neatly into his mouth with the endless tolerance of the seeker.

It rained while the pastor, a thin, balding man whose accent was not so much _not-there_ as _not not-there,_ read a prayer for Niall’s soul. Ronan had never been particularly adept at worrying about his own soul, or anyone else’s, for that matter, but he thought he might have to learn. He realised that the preacher was a man of little talent other than making words fit together so that the majority of the gathered would listen in faux reverence.

It rained while another flood of water washed a flood of people towards the Lynch brothers to offer their condolences in varying shades of sincerity, and it rained while Ronan and Declan fought, because they were Lynches, and fighting was the language they spoke best.

Ronan and Declan had not spoken since Ronan had taken the BMW to Monmouth. Declan had called Gansey several times, to explain the terms of his and Ronan’s agreement, which Ronan had neglected to explain to Gansey: Ronan could stay at Monmouth as long as he stayed at Aglionby and made decent grades; Ronan was not to do anything permanently damaging to the BMW—this much Ronan agreed with—or to any of the other cars; Ronan was not to stir up or go looking for trouble relating in any way to Niall Lynch’s death.

But they were speaking now. Ronan grabbed Declan by the tailored collar of his black suit and yanked him away from the diamond-studded politician’s wife to whom he had been speaking. “Are you gonna sit around and just let all this fucking happen?”

Declan’s face displayed shock. “Ronan, what are you—”

“The _will._ ” Ronan shoved Declan backwards, away from the sea of umbrellas and out into the sheets of rain. “Are you just gonna let them take our home from us? And _Mom_?”

After the first few terrible days, Ronan had been unable to make the idea stick in his brain that he would never be able to return to his home. Now, after a week to think on it, he had come to the conclusion that he could fix things, but that Declan was in the way.

“There’s nothing we can do,” Declan spat. “Grow up, Ronan. Throwing a tantrum won’t make anything go your way.”

“Fuck you,” Ronan snarled. A crowd was forming behind him, intend on gathering as much sordid gossip as possible to repeat at a later date. _Did you hear about the Lynch brothers? The fight at the funeral, yes—_ It was unthinkable. Lynch brothers did not give up, so what Declan was doing was unheard-of. “You’re just going to give in without a fight?”

“What fight _is_ there?” Declan threw up his hands, ignoring the rain spilling down his expensive suit. “Dad can’t do shit for you any more. Mom—you know what happened to Mom,” Declan said wildly, losing his composure for the first time since Niall’s death. Ronan did not know what had happened to Aurora, but Declan did not give him the chance to ask. “You read the will, Ronan. We can’t go back. Dad said so.”

“It will never stand up in court,” Ronan said. His heart was pounding. He was determined to make Declan see reason. Even if they could not get back the Barns and Aurora, they at least had to try. Who were they to give up without a fight? It went against everything Niall had ever taught them. “We should _fight_ it.”

Declan’s lip curled. He looked incredibly removed from the brother Ronan had known only a week ago. “It doesn’t matter. Mom is nothing without him.” And then, the final cruelty: “We might as well go.”

“We have to fight,” Ronan insisted. He did not know exactly what had happened to Aurora, only that she would not wake up, but some part of him still secretly believed that, maybe if Aurora Lynch were returned to them—comatose or no—things might get better. Not good, but better. He needed Declan to see this, to understand why fighting would be a better idea than lying down and being beaten.

But Declan had already turned away. “She’s not fighting.”

Ronan understood, then, that he could not make Declan comprehend. Declan would have to do that himself. His father was dead, his mother was sleeping, his younger brother was gone, his home was forbidden, and now his only remaining family had vanished into a steel prison with hunted eyes.

His fist crashed into the side of Declan’s face.

There was a shout—one of the guests—and Declan spun around, clapping his hand to his cheek to check for blood, even as he grabbed for Ronan with his other arm. For a moment his eyes cleared, and Ronan felt a wild surge of hope. Maybe this would be all it took.

“You _bastard,_ ” Declan spat bitterly. His thumbs pressed against Ronan’s collar, digging into his neck, slick with rainwater. “Do you _ever_ think about anything other than yourself?”

Ronan smashed his fist into Declan’s face in response. He expected Declan to block. Niall Lynch had taught all three of his sons to box, but Declan had been the best at it. Ronan had lived for the brief snatches of fights when Declan had been in the mood to help him. _Keep your intentions clear,_ Declan would say, fixing Ronan’s stance casually. _Move with purpose._ Declan had been the best at boxing: Ronan could never land a punch on him without being hit by three of Declan’s.

Declan did not block. He staggered backwards, hands flying to his nose. A thin, red streak of blood smeared across his face. His nose looked crooked. Pain was written between every line on his face.

 _“Ronan.”_ A hand fell onto his shoulder; another gripped his arm. _Gansey._ “Ronan Lynch, stop this _right now._ This is _not_ the time. Stop. Look at me. _Look_ at me, Jesus Christ. Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

Declan had pulled himself up, holding his broken nose. A small crowd of worried, eager bystanders had gathered around him, offering aid or assistance, but Declan ignored them. “You left before, Ronan,” he said thickly. “Now it’s not your choice. Get the hell away from us.”

Matthew was staring between his two older brothers with wide, frightened eyes. He still pointlessly held the umbrella, hanging at his side. It was slowly filling with rainwater. Ronan’s heart, already shattered, was breaking again.

“Come on,” Gansey murmured, guiding Ronan away. Ronan barely registered the touch of Gansey’s hand on his arm, the brush of grass against his ankles, the trickle of rain running down his back. “Let’s get out of here before it gets worse.”

It rained while Gansey drove the Camaro back to Monmouth, and Ronan sat immobile and shaking in the passenger seat, waves of fear and anger and loss and pain crashing in his head. It rained like another great flood would come down and wash the world clean of its sins, leaving a bright, new day.

 

 

Adam lifted his head and brushed his lips against Ronan’s cheek. Ronan cupped Adam’s chin in his hands and looked at him, relishing in the fact that he was allowed to do this now, he was allowed to look at Adam Parrish whenever he wanted, he was allowed.

“I think it stopped raining,” Adam murmured.

Ronan listened for a moment. He couldn’t hear the steadily-irregular beat of raindrops on the roof of the apartment, or the gushing roar of water dumping from the gutters. Adam was probably correct. “I think you’re right.”

Adam’s eyebrows drew together in the middle. “Did you do that?”

Ronan grinned.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  [Tumblr.](spacestationtrustfund.tumblr.com)


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